State Common Core Standards A Big Deal

I heard a presentation by the staff of the chief state school officers and National Governors Association describing the process 46 states have agreed to formulate shorter, higher, and clearer standards for ELA and math. This is on a fast track with the entire job to be done by early 2010, and then a three year period for states to adopt 85% of these core standards as the state curriculum content. But I was concerned that there is no representative of higher education among the organizations that are leading the effort to set  the  standards, or on the organizations listed supporting the effort! ACT and College Board are on the key organizing  group, but I do not think they represent 4,000 postsecondary institutions. How can this be implemented without postsecondary buy in? Maybe, this will come in the rapid vetting process, but the standards need to link to what colleges teach.

The presenters stressed this process will be based on research evidence, but much of common core is a philoshpical and political question- What knowledge is most worth knowing cannot be settled empirically. Go to www.ccsso.org for more details.

One comment on “State Common Core Standards A Big Deal”

  1. Hi, I share your concerns about the speed of this process, but I just wanted to point out that there is indeed a representative of higher education on math writing group, namely me.

    Regards,

    Bill McCallum
    Head, Department of Mathematics, University of Arizona


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